In this edition of PhD Stories from the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication (ESHCC), we speak with Dr Yongjian Groenendijk-Li about his research on Chinese retirees who migrate like “migratory birds” between cities and seasons. His work reveals how these older adults use digital platforms to stay connected, share knowledge, and reshape what it means to age in the twenty-first century.
When grandparents become influencers
What if your grandfather wasn’t struggling with his smartphone, but instead teaching online classes to thousands of followers? On 25 September 2025, Yongjian Groenendijk-Li defended his dissertation at the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication (ESHCC), offering a radically new perspective on ageing in the digital era. His research followed a group of Chinese retirees who call themselves Houniao – “migratory birds” – because they spend winters in the warm south and summers back in the colder north. Yet their migration is not just physical. By embracing platforms like WeChat and Douyin (Chinese TikTok), these older adults are reshaping what retirement can look like: building digital neighbourhoods, exchanging knowledge, and creating communities that flow seamlessly between online and offline worlds.
From a simple question to digital wings
At the heart of Yongjian’s research was a deceptively simple question: how do older adults use digital technologies to stay connected across distances? But as the project unfolded, the puzzle grew deeper. “I realised it wasn’t just about adaptation,” he explains. “The retirees weren’t following the rules of younger generations – they were writing their own. Smartphones became their digital wings, enabling them to be present in multiple places at once.” Instead of treating technology as something to be learned from their children, these retirees were teaching each other, forming peer-to-peer networks that turned knowledge-sharing from something vertical into something profoundly horizontal.
Playing detective in three worlds
To uncover these dynamics, Yongjian combined perspectives in an unusual way. He examined twenty years of newspaper coverage to see how society talked about these older migrants, spent three months in Sanya – sometimes called the “Chinese Florida” – joining retirees at their morning exercises and inside their WeChat groups, and immersed himself in hundreds of Douyin videos. “It was like detective work across three worlds,” he recalls. “Ethnography met digital anthropology, layered with media analysis.”
Hacking the rules of ageing
What emerged from this work were two striking insights. First, these older adults are not passive users reluctantly learning from younger relatives; they are active innovators, teaching one another how to thrive in digital environments. Second, their way of inhabiting multiple places simultaneously – what Yongjian calls “mediated nearby” – challenges our assumptions about home, distance, and presence. “They don’t choose between staying put or moving away,” he explains. “They’ve hacked ageing by using digital technologies to create new forms of mobility and belonging.”
What the future of ageing could look like
The implications of this research reach far beyond China. By 2050, one in four people worldwide will be over 60. If cities and technologies continue to be designed under the assumption that ageing means decline and immobility, entire generations will be left behind. Yongjian argues that the Houniao point to alternative futures: ones in which older adults explore instead of withdraw, and where technology fosters community instead of isolation. “Anyone who plans to age – which is all of us – should be paying attention to what they’re doing,” he stresses.
The moment everything flipped
The PhD journey also reshaped Yongjian’s own worldview. He began his project assuming he would be studying a vulnerable population in need of technological support. Instead, he discovered a community of innovators who often outpaced their younger counterparts. One unforgettable moment came when an 80-year-old participant showed him how to make a WeChat video call – a wake-up call to his own unconscious biases. “That was the turning point,” he admits. “I realised I wasn’t studying subjects; I was learning from teachers. The hardest part of the PhD was unlearning my own assumptions about ageing.”
Fuelled by books, music and humour
Alongside his fieldwork, Yongjian found inspiration in unexpected places. Virginia Woolf’s The Waves – with its line “I am rooted, but I flow” – resonated deeply with the Houniao experience, while Margaret Atwood’s time-bending fiction shaped how he thought about digital presence across distance. Music also gave him strength: from Pia Douwes’ Mijn leven is van mij and Paul de Leeuw’s ’k Heb je lief to Robbie Williams’ Angels and even the light-hearted BBC sitcom Miranda. “These works connected to my themes of meaning, love, compassion and courage in everyday life,” he says with a smile.
Choosing care over campus
Looking ahead, Yongjian has decided not to remain in academia but to channel his insights into practice. He will begin training as a mental health nurse with Parnassia Groep, inspired by the ways his research highlighted the importance of peer support and lived experience in navigating life transitions. “Studying how people build resilience through connection made me want to contribute directly to that process,” he explains. “Now I want to bring those lessons into clinical practice.”
“Be the narrator of your own life”
Asked for the one message he hopes readers will remember, Yongjian doesn’t hesitate:
“Be the narrator of your own life stories, and live your life to the fullest.”
- Researcher
- More information
Name of the PhD candidate: Yongjian Groenendijk-Li
Title of the dissertation: Migratory Birds in the Digital Age: Digital Place-making, Narrative, and Identity of Chinese Ageing Houniao Migrants
Date of defence: September 25, 2025
Department/research cluster: Media and Communication
